Elbert Hubbard Quotes

My only fear is doing something contrary to human nature - the wrong thing, the wrong way, or at the wrong time.

When, in the present world, men behave well, that is no doubt sometimes because they are creatures of habit as well as, sometimes, because they are reasonable.

Intention, good or bad, is not enough.

Motives are often more important than actions

Too great a preoccupation with motives (especially one's own motive) is liable to lead to too little concern for consequences.

Most men are not wicked... They are sleep-walkers, not evil evildoers.

Those who meant well behaved in the same way as those who meant badly.

Reason and right give the quickest despatch.

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

The right actions undertaken for the right reasons generally lead to good outcomes over time.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.

It seems that if you put people on paper and move them through time, you cannot help but talk about ethics, because the ethical realm exists nowhere if not here: in the consequences of human actions as they unfold in time, and the multiple interpretive possibility of those actions.

I don't think anyone sets out to do something bad, it's just that it's very difficult.

The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest.

Bad guys are not bad guys twenty-four hours a day.

Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.

I think that moral philosophy is useful for framing questions, but terrible at answering them. I think moral psychology is booming right now, and we're making a lot of progress on understanding how we actually work, what our moral nature is.

Sin in this country has been always said to be rather calculating than impulsive.

[R]eason is... given to us as a practical faculty, that is, as one that influences the will.

The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.

Yes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but everyone forgets the second half of that quote: the road to heaven is paved with good actions.

Morality is the Science of harmonious relations between intelligent beings.

Reason is not the sole basis of moral virtue in man. His social impulses are more deeply rooted than his rational life.

Reason can never be the absolute dictator of man's mental or moral economy.